|
The
Chik Tek
symposium in November 1997 at the San Jose Museum of Art, was a
two day gathering of women using technology in both art and industry.
Women shared their work and ideas in a forum of dynamic presentations
and panel discussions. Seven months later, I decided to follow through
on questions I had at the symposium by interviewing some of the
participants.
The title of the conference was controversial. The title was
a label overarching this gathering of women thinkers. What was
this fragment of ideology doing here? Was it meant to be a parody
or straight? What did it signify? I felt that the title was
standing smug and slightly out of reach, and I wanted to grab it,
challenge it and make it accountable in the arena of opinions. What
did it say about us, and what did we have to say about it? A question
for the women interviewed was "how do you feel about the title of the
Chik Tek symposium, and what do you think of the word 'chick'?"
Another question I wanted to hear a discussion about was why was
this a conference for women only? Was segregation helpful and why?
What was going on about this? My question was, "Do you feel that a
symposium for women in technology is useful as opposed to a mixed
gender symposium?"
A number of women artists from the Chik Tek symposium had their
work in the Chik Tek 97 exhibition at the Art Tech Gallery in San
Jose, with a catalog. Concurrently with this exhibition was a show
at the San Jose Museum of Art, called "Alternating Currents: American
Art in the Age of Technology, selections from the permanent collection
of the Whitney Museum of American Art," where a mere three out of
approximately thirty-three artists were women. My question was, "What
are your comments about the separation of gender in the art hierarchy?"
The interviews were by phone and the responses were reconstructed
from handwritten notes. I tried to catch the sentences verbatim, and
I hope that I have cleanly caught the ideas of the person being
interviewed. Some ideas were reordered to make them flow better.
Artist interviews follow:
Lisa Milosevich
bio
Lisa started off in the art world as a photographer, which led into
commercial photography, graphics arts and now 14 years later she is
doing web design and authoring for a large software company. In graduate
school at San Jose State University, Lisa had the idea of documenting
women who were working in and with technology to get the pulse of what
was really happening, and to find out with a disregard to statistics
how strong women were and where they were heading, and to see in what
way technology was being affected and how it would affect people in the
future. Thus was born the idea for the
Chik Tek conference, which Lisa
put together and directed. She has produced a cd-rom of the Chik Tek
conference, and if you are interested in it, please contact Lisa at
lmilosev@adobe.com
thoughts
I have no problem with the name of the conference. The name was a joke,
akin to Web Grrls. Women can call themselves what they want. We need a
sense of humor about these things. The connotations of younger women
calling themselves "chick" is different than 20 years ago. Women nowadays
are brought up with a lot more freedom. Whether women liked the title or
not is very generational. Younger women are so accustomed to seeing campy
names, they don't even blink an eye. Women in their 40's would find it
much more insulting.
The word "chick" is a slang term for young woman, and though it can be
derogatory or positive, it is pretty neutral. It doesn't come with any
value to it one way or another. I was worried that Chik Tek was going
to sound fluffy, and not serious enough, but we got the funding we were
seeking for the conference. "Chick" is slang and neutral, and "tech"
sounds hard and mechanical, so they seem opposite to each other, but
together they add up to something more.
A symposium just for women is useful. It was good to take a poll, how
are women influencing technology? How do they feel? The idea was for women
to walk away feeling empowered and inspired, in a way that one might not
get from a mixed gender symposium. I'm not pro-segregation, but it is
interesting to see how women are involved with technology from a sociological
standpoint. I think there is a myth that there are not a lot of women in
technology. For example, at a Photoshop conference, most of the speakers
might be men even when there are more and more women using Photoshop. But
they are not the ones getting up there, they are not front and center. The
Chik Tek conference allowed women to show off what they are doing. It didn't
turn into a discussion about women's issues -- that wasn't the point. The
point was to talk about what women were doing and to provide a showcase for them.
An important aspect of the conference was that there was a wide variety of
ages and viewpoints. It was valuable to see what different people had to say
on the subject. For example, Margaret Morse said that some of her chief role
models are women that are younger than her. Sarah Allen said that when they
are interviewing people for a job, there will be 15 men for every 5 women,
and that the 5 women have to be good because there are less of them.
The fact that the Alternating Currents show was dominated by men is
unfortunate. It shows a lack of research on the part of the Whitney. They
are leaving out the women pioneers. Historically women have gotten less
coverage, and it is slowly changing. For example, Lynn Hershman's work
is grand and thought provoking. She is very well known. Why isn't she
getting spreads in Time magazine?
Tamiko Thiel
bio
Tamiko Thiel, currently living in San Francisco, studied Product
Design Engineering at Stanford University, human-machine interface
design at MIT's Media Lab and Biomechanics Lab, and fine art with an
emphasis in installation and video art at the Academy of Fine Art in
Munich, Germany. She utilizes this background to explore the sensuality
of the machine and technology as a vehicle for human fantasy. She has
exhibited her video art in the US, Japan and Europe. She was creative
director and producer of Starbright World, a virtual reality playspace
for seriously ill children, has taught design theory at Carnegie Mellon
University and directed the industrial and packaging design of a series
of massively parallel supercomputers, the Connection Machines CM-1 and
CM-2, at Thinking Machines Corporation. Currently she is working on art
projects using virtual reality, and has received a grant from Wired
Magazine and the Asian American Arts Foundation (AAAF) for research and
creation of an initial prototype. A description of the project is at:
http://mission.base.com/tamiko.
thoughts
When I was getting into the engineering profession in the late 70's,
women felt like they had to hide their gender in order to dress for
success. They wore skirted suits that were female but not sexy, the
styles were frumpy. The idea was to try to make women look serious.
But it was also restricting, that to be taken seriously you had to act
sexless and genderless.
At various points in my personal development of life and career, I
ran into women that were cool, chic, elegant, competent, with a very
feminine and commanding presence. On the basis of these role models,
I realized we could have it all, we could be respected for our technical
talent and didn't have to give up our sexuality. Personally I haven't
had a problem being a woman in engineering.
In discussing the title of the symposium "Chik Tek" I was all for it.
It conveys a sassiness that I really enjoy. Younger women today feel less
inhibited, feel they can be sexy, sassy and also be treated as intelligent
and competent. This is because of the pioneering work done by older women.
We don't want to be eunuchs.
In repossessing words we can change the meaning, to not allow society
to define the scope of the word. In taking over the word "chick," we can
define it to mean both powerful and sexy. I don't think the word has been
redefined, though. A cool guy is a "dude". What is the equivalent for women?
What do you call a cool girl?
It was good to have a symposium that focuses on women. There are plenty
of mixed gender symposiums. It was interesting for me to go to Chik Tek and
to talk to women involved with technology in different ways, to bathe in
the atmosphere.
Regarding the Alternating Currents show, it's obvious that groups go
for their own values. This is also true if you have only women defining
who the great artists are. What we need is diversity in the ranks of
those doing the defining, to include different value systems. Whether
it's black american, asian american, or european american, you can't
expect a single homogenous group to be able to represent all viewpoints.
I'm not sure if technology is changing the status of women or of if
there is a parallel development happening at the same time. Technology,
by providing more opportunites, allows women to compete on an equal
level with men. It helps them switch from blue collar work to white
collar work in many but not all countries. Women can compete on an
equal basis with men on more vital and higher economic levels.
Technology is very enabling for women. I have the impression that
more women are exhibited world wide in new media than in the traditional
art world. If this is true, could it be because it is a smaller pool
that people can't afford to ignore, or because the value system of people
involved in new media is different than the value system of people in
traditional mediums? A difference in mentality produces new media.
Geri Wittig
bio
Geri Wittig received her MFA in Computers in Fine Art from the
CADRE Institute of the School of Art and Design at San Jose State
University. Working primarily with installation and the Web, her
work focuses on social and political aspects of computer mediated
communications technology. Her work for the Chik Tek 97 exhibition,
"HomeNet: Home Entertainment and Surveillance Center -- Better
Living through Networking", is a Web installation which juxtaposes
voyeuristic and exhibitionistic qualities of the Web.
thoughts
The title "Chik Tek" was suggested for the symposium by me in an
informal, joking sort of way, it was really just an off-handed kind
of joke. Now I am not sure about the
title. It was appropriate in some ways. It acted on the queer nation
model, which is taking a derogatory term as one's own -- by owning it,
it becomes empowered. It also has an alliance with the girl power
movement. Empowering the term "girl" or "chick," becomes part of the
young hip vernacular, though I haven't seen the word "chick" used in
the girl power movement.
The problem now is that it alludes to the third wave of the
post-feminist movement and to aspects of girl power, and mapping
out our spaces within that movement. I don't think that happened at
the Chik Tek conference. I don't think the girl power movement was
represented or addressed. At feminist taxonomy sites, girl power
doesn't even get listed, but it's definitely a presence on the web.
I think there's a certain sense of power we have as children
that's affected or maybe even lost when our sexual identities begin
to emerge. Before we hit adolescence we're usually less identified
with our sexuality and the confusion and insecurities emerging sexual
identities bring; we're more at ease with ourselves on that level.
When you hit adolescence, the self-esteem issues hit, regarding what
you should be in terms of being a female. I think an aspect of girl
power is reclaiming the power and sense of well being you had as a
girl and not having to conform to stereotypes that compromise self-esteem.
In 1998 we are at a historical point, we find ourselves with a
multiplicity of feminisms, and a complex post-modern relationship
with feminism. This is important to look at and I don't think it
was addressed at the conference. There wasn't a discussion of the
first, second and third waves of feminism, and asking the question,
"where are we now?" This wasn't visible to me. Where are we now?
I assumed that we were feminists. Are we feminists?
There could have been men at the conference. When we started "Act
Up," the AIDS activist group, in San Jose, there was a heterosexual
woman, a heterosexual man, several gay men, and a transsexual -
a man in the process of becoming a woman. It was a very eclectic
mix, but the point was that we were all queer identified. Similarly at
the Chik Tek conference, it would have been good to have had men involved
that were feminist identified.
I don't think segregation is necessary in the day-to-day environment
that we live in today. I think where it's useful is when the culture is
so oppressive, that oppressed members gain power by creating a segregated
community from which to build and gain ground first, as happened in earlier
feminist movements. I think it's important however for that structure to
evolve and move out into the larger culture, as social progress is made.
I think to a large extent we've gotten past that point in many areas of
the physical reality culture, but to some extent I think it's still
necessary in cyberspace. In cyberspace I think it's still useful for
women to segregate in certain arenas in order to create a presence for
themselves, as it's a relatively new space of cultural production.
Technology is a leveling tool. It depends on the field, though. In art
the leveling is much more apparent than in engineering. For people of
my generation we've had to learn the technology as a second language,
we came to it after childhood and adolescence. But for a young person,
it is part of their literacy, like a language. It is so much more a part
of the way they are structured.
Lynn Hershman
bio
Lynn Hershman has worked for the past 30 years in photography,
site-specific public art, and video. She is credited as the first
artist to create an interactive art videodisk, entitled Lorna,
(1979-83). Her 51 videotapes and 4 interactive installations have
received many international awards. In 1994, she was the first
woman to receive a tribute and retrospective at the San Francisco
International Film Festival. She received the German ZKM/Seimens
Media Arts Award alongside director Peter Greenaway and theorist
Jean Baudrillard. Lynn Hershman is currently a professor at the
University of California, Davis where she teaches electronic arts
and is the founder of the IDEA Media Lab.
thoughts
A symposium just for women is good, and can be more intimate
and helpful. Women tend to help each other more. A mixed gender
symposium could be more informative and broader ranging in scope,
for example men are usually CEOs, there are not a lot of women in
powerful positions.
The symposium was a good beginning. It has to go further. The
ideas are right, but it needs more refinement. There was no follow
up to the symposium, there could have been ongoing dialogues on line.
I really hated the title. I felt it was degrading, because it
relived bad stereotypes. Calling women "chicks" is negative, and
calling them "techs" is too. Techs are assumed to be non-thinkers,
just technicians. It needed something more dignified, something
that conveyed that women understand technology on a conceptual level.
The separation of gender in the art hierarchy is terrible. I've
just had two shows in San Francisco, and neither were reviewed. I'm
fairly well known in Europe, but in the U.S. I can't get shows. I
feel like I am being excluded constantly. My work wasn't in the
Alternating Currents show. It would be good if there was a more
effective way to monitor museums' discrimination.
Lisa Jevbratt
bio
Lisa Jevbratt designs and programs art systems that particaptes
in, feeds off and comments on the processes of change resulting from
the development of information/communication technologies. Lisa was
born in Sweden, she studied at Malmoe School of Fine Arts - Forum in
Sweden, she is an internationally exhibited artist, and has recently
graduated with an MFA from San Jose State University's CADRE Institute.
thoughts
The title is obviously problematic. Using the word "chick" basically
comes down to a humor that I don't think is funny. However, I almost
like the title because it almost makes fun of the symposium. It says
something about how the symposium was problematic.
I don't think that a symposium just for women in technology is useful.
Information technology is forcing us to redefine roles and what it means
to be human. The changes are more fundamental than how women can change
their so-called experiences as women. It's even more strange for artists
working in technology to have a gender based event, than another medium
such as painting, because the development of technology is bringing on
changes of what it means to be human. We have to see that in part
technology controls us, and we have to follow. To take advantage of
it, we have to give in. So by having a symposium where everyone is
trying to manifest the differences between men and women in a superficial
way, it stops the possibilities of what could be very important with new
technologies for women and men. I heard a lot of sexist comments in the
symposium, like the idea that women have more common sense, that illogical
thinking is "feminine," and that women are connected to an essence of life.
Regarding the Aternating Currents show: We live in a male dominated
culture. By continually confirming that women have more common sense,
or that men are more logical, it will never change. It is putting
ourselves down, and not the right way of fighting the obvious fact
that society is male dominated. The right way of fighting it is
explicitly refusing to submit to the predefined roles of what men
and women are, and I feel like I'm doing that in my work all the time.
When you work with information technology as an art medium, you have
a good chance to investigate how we are changing. By working with it,
I participate actively in the processes that are redefining us.
I participated in the symposium because I wanted to be in on the
discussion. I had a chance to jump in and express these views. It's
good to get another opportunity to discuss these things.
Diane Fenster
bio
Diane Fenster is an internationally exhibited digital artist.
Her work has been called an important voice in the development of
a true digital aesthetic. She views herself as an alchemist, using
digital tools to delve into fundamental human issues. Her work is
literary and emotional, full of symbolism and multiple layers of
meaning. The tradition of the Surrealist cut-up is evident in her
formal concerns. Fenster's work marries evocative and fragmented
imagery, taken from the artist's photography. Her images appear in
numerous publications and CD's on digital art including the Aperture
monograph "Metamorphoses: Photography in the Electronic Age" and her
work appears on the Zonezero photography website curated by Pedro Meyer.
She is a guest lecturer at many seminars and conferences. Her work has
been exhibited at the SIGGRAPH 95 and SIGGRAPH97 fine art shows and is
part of museum and corporate private collections.
thoughts
I would have preferred a mixed gender symposium. I understand
that having a women only symposium is to further women, but it is
like a special olympics, like a handicap. I see everyone working
equally. We are stronger and can get a lot further by everyone
working together.
I would like to encourage more women to consider using and working
with technology in their work. I do illustration as well as fine art,
and I did a presentation for "The Alternative Pick," which is an
illustration and photography source book. A woman came up and thanked
me for being a woman who used technology in her work. She described
a situation in her school in the computers in art department, which
was dominated by men. The men had the power, and had access to
"technological information" because they knew the "numbers" but
not necessarily the spirit.
I would like women to come to understand that technology can be
used to describe things beyond technology, that it is a tool to describe
emotion, a tool in art for personal exploration. I'd like to see more of
a balance going on.
The title "Chik Tek" was counterproductive. I understand it was
coined as a joke. I don't think it bears commenting on.
Monica Lam
bio
Monica Lam is a filmmaker who works in experimental and documentary
digital video. On exhibit currently is a multimedia installation at the
New Langton Arts Gallery in San Francisco which combines a 3-screen image
display with digital photography; the piece is an advertising campaign
for an imaginary product "Dai Wu," a drink that provides instant enlightenment.
Monica recently completed a 1-1/2 year project as researcher and cinematographer
on a PBS series "In Search of Law and Order" about juvenile justice in the U.S.,
which broadcast nationally this past April 98. Her current video projects
include working as an associate producer for "Citizen Hong Kong" a documentary
about 4 people growing up in post-handover Hong Kong, and directing "Becoming
Mr. Asian" a documentary about San Francisco's first Asian male beauty pageant.
The piece which she exhibited at Chik Tek 97 at the Art Tech gallery was a
video piece called "Sex and Zen," a series of 6 shorts about contemporary
Hong Kong culture and technology.
thoughts
The word "chick" is a funny term. I like it, it's cool. It depends
upon the context, but it can be used in a way that implies a certain
kind of casual toughness. The voice saying the word is so important.
A woman using "girl" or "girlfriend" establishes an immediate casual
bond. A man using "girl" doesn't work for me -- I'm not a girl anymore.
Surfer girls are "chicks" -- and in that context it means cool,
fastpaced and light-hearted. When paired with the word "tech," it
sounds like another language, becomes truncated and abstract in an
interesting way, and there are less implications than when either
word is mentioned alone.
A symposium just for women in technology was useful. I got to meet
other women artists, it was a chance to network. A good thing was that
gender was not massively in the forefront. The work was not clouded or
pushed aside. Gender was just one of the reasons for getting together.
It was useful because we are still in a world where both technological
industry and the art world are controlled by men. The film-making world
is controlled by men. It is useful to have forums where that level of
competition is taken away. In jobs, there is in-your-face sexism that
is widespread and ingrained.
Regarding the Alternating Currents show: The more established an
institution, the less likely they are to take a risk. In art school
the ratio is 60% women and 40% men. In the art world, the ratio is
drastically different, not for lack of women artists and not for lack
of people getting out there. For every layer/level of recognition, the
closer you get to the "top" the smaller the layer becomes. By the time
you get to the top there are very few women to pick from. At every level
there are fewer women selected.
E.G. Crichton
bio
E.G. Crichton is a visual artist who creates multi-media installations
and collaborative temporal public works. Her art explores hidden histories,
collective social concerns, and controversies about sex and the body. Her
subject matter grows out of a collusion between site and historical research,
stories from her life, and stories from the lives of people she interviews.
Mostly viewer activated, the work brings together a mix of visual and
written/spoken media: projected imagery, sculptural forms, text, video,
sound, and electronic components. The technology she uses juxtaposes
equipment from the recent past with contemporary electronic technology.
She lives in San Francisco, and is Assistant Professor of Art at the
University of California, Santa Cruz.
thoughts
It is important to have women's only events for almost anything. I
come out of the feminist movement of the late 60's and 70's. It is
necessary at certain stages of things. For technology this is especially
true. Issues of access to control and power are gendered, and women can
help each other have better access. This conference was a stepping stone.
I have mixed feelings about the title. On the one hand, although there
are lots of words I've been willing to take over, embrace and use in a
powerful way, I have never embraced the word "chick". I still remember
being called a chick in hippy days. I didn't like being a chick, it had
a proprietary sense implied. The association was not tough or strong. On
the other hand, the title was refreshing because it was so flippant. The
symposium needed a title that was sexy and catchy, and "Chik Tek" provided
that. I like to think that there is a broad range of styles permissible for
women that convey strength, and that these styles can seep into different
contexts. I'd hate to think that technology just conveyed one style.
Regarding the gender and hierarchy difference between the two shows --
it's emblematic of what goes on all over the country. It is easier for
women to be shown in small alternative galleries. The art world is pretty
slow around this, it has not changed to keep up with other changes. Women
are working with technology a lot, making inroads. When I teach computer
art to college students, there are still more men than women, and the men
are more likely to have prior experience. Young girls need to be exposed
to technology earlier, and need access to training.
In the art world, technology is being featured now, unnaturally isolated
from other mediums. The division between what is technology and what isn't
becomes gimicky, a forced straight-jacket. Maybe technology is too broad --
for example, a show could be organized by another principle, such as
interactivity, which might include both work that uses technology and work
that doesn't.
It does make sense to organize around the idea of technology when it
comes to resources. Women could help each other have access to resources.
Class is an important factor regarding who has access. Artists who have to
work for a living have less time and fewer resources to buy computers. Our
organizing as women needs to be inflected with a deeper politics, to provide
help across class and race lines. The question is not how rich white women
can be equal to men. Women need to be more radical. The question is: who is
the 'we'?
Concluding remarks
The thoughts and stories shared by the women interviewed are dynamic.
I enjoyed the diversity in points of view. Although limited by time, I
wanted more -- my desire was to keep going, to continue the conversations
and interviews with more of the participants, and ideally, women and men
in the audience. People's viewpoints were enlightening and filled with
passion, and to hear the frank feelings was to take a step to re-examine
my own beliefs, feed off the synergistic energy, and ask the question
"Where do we go from here?" One thing I hope we do is to continue the dialogue.
|
